Victory Gardens San Diego
Connecting San Diego's Local Food Web
17 Organizations, over 500 Members. . . plus you?
Working hand-in-hand with several San Diego food-movement groups, VGSD encourages and assists in the development of sustainable, healthy, Earth-friendly home, community and school food gardens throughout the San Diego area.
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Vol. 11 VGSD Newsletter July 2010
Where are the Victory Gardens?
Click this link to see a Google Map of all VGSD installations and projects!
Welcome to summer! A lot more has been accomplished and there are lots of projects coming up for the summer. This month’s newsletter focuses on recent projects completed, projects coming up and an invitation to join our VGSD Yahoo group.
First a huge Thank-you to the Ocean Beach People’s Food Co-op for their generous donation of $1,000 to VGSD’s garden building efforts. This is the second large donation made to VGSD by People’s. We truly appreciate their support for VGSD’s mission.
Thanks also to Whitney and Su Lin Robinson of Whole Earth Acre Nursery for a generous $100 donation. They sell plant starts each Saturday at the Vista Farmers Market and Sunday at the Hillcrest Farmers Market and are the source of plant starts for many of our garden builds. We also received a $300 grant from Becky Bones to fund our Garden Education classes at the MAAC Charter School Project Youth Build Garden.
San Diego Roots Sustainble Farm @ Suzies!
Last month, after years of searching, San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project (of which VGSD is a program) began our Educational Farm Center along the banks of the Tijuana River in South San Diego County. Called Roots Farm @ Suzie’s, the farm comprises five acres of existing, organic farmland, fruit trees and greenhouses ideally suited for tying all the projects goals together. Adjacent to the Tijuana River Estuary, the area is peaceful and filled with wildlife, despite being just 20 minutes from downtown San Diego and sandwiched between six million people of both sides of the border (all of whom eat). The farm is less than three miles from the coast, ensuring a mild, year-round growing climate, less than two miles north of the border and from Interstate 5, with quick access to both car and public transportation. Ample well water for irrigation eliminates the need to purchase expensive and rationed municipal water.
We openly invite VGSD members of the community to participate in the farm. We have volunteer days every Saturday and Wednesday (check our website for details and a map). On the first Saturday of every month we have Roots Night Out at the Farm, with volunteer opportunities, a grand potluck dinner followed by a movie under the stars. As the farm develops, VGSD will host ongoing weekend classes in organic home gardening, composting, fruit-trees, water-saving irrigation, organic soil amendments and more. For information about the farm or classes, visit the San Diego Roots website or subscribe to the VGSD newsletter. We really look forward to seeing you there!
Eight Completed Projects in May and early June
Beth Montessori Pre-school, La Jolla: We built a raised planter and provided organic soil, seeds and plants, a compost tumbler and greenhouse shelving to help Beth Montessori get their edible garden off the ground. They hope to share their produce with underserved families in San Diego as well as teach sustainability in a hands-on way to their students. Many thanks to Mark who helped complete this project.
Garden Education at MAAC Project Youthbuild: We just completed our 4th Garden Education Series using grant money from The Johnson-Ohana Foundation. Our mission was to provide four garden education education series for underserved communities in San Diego and our work with the students at Project Youthbuild fulfilled that goal. We may be able to squeeze one more class out of the grant. The students built eight raised beds and our course helped them to plant and irrigate the area. Their goal is to build 17 beds in all and grow food for themselves and others. The MAAC project is partly vocational so the students aged 18-24 were introduced to urban agriculture as a career option. Thanks to instructors Yael, Shelly and Bob for a job well done.
Poway Produce Project: On June 3 we helped volunteers from the Poway Produce Project build a fence around their garden near Pomerado Hospital. All produce grown will be donated to families in need around the Poway area. As of this writing, this active group has planted their summer garden and it’s growing strong! Thanks to VGSD’er, Micheal for helping out.
Joe’s Pocket Farm Cleanup: About 25 VGSD’ers and Community members gathered Sunday, June 6 at Joe’s Pocket Farm in National City to begin preparing this great site to become a beautiful community garden for nearby residents. Much trimming, cleaning, hauling and debris clearing was accomplished. Next steps include a bit more weeding, cultivating, watering, mulching and coming up with a design for the community to agree on. We hope this site will be a future VGSD Garden Ed location. Stay tuned!
Garden Education at Hartley House: We just completed a four week garden education series for 15 gardeners at Hartley House. This was a project done in coordination with Second Chance, a non-profit organization that assists men and women in re-integrating back into society after an incarceration. The class consisted of residents, Second Chance staff and other community members. We created 3 garden beds, compost area and an irrigation system. Now the residents have both the knowledge and produce to eat in a more healthy manner. Thanks to Shelly, Yael, Richard and Carol for their excellent instruction. We also provided direction and materials for Second Chance’s May 15 Volunteer Project.
Fabiani Garden Build: On Wednesday, June 9, VGSD’ers and Seeds at City College Urban Farm interns created two raised beds, installed irrigation and planted the garden won in an auction for Explorer Elementary School. We were done in a little over 4 hours! Many thanks to all our volunteers.
Garden Build at Angel House: This was another Second Chance Project. On May 15, Second Chance brought in numerous volunteers and VGSD provided the expertise to install a garden at Angel House. Many thanks to Dorothea our garden guide for this project and Mark, her assistant.
Pomerado Gardens Apartments: On Friday, June 18, we assisted Michelle Delozier by building two raised bed gardens. Michelle will be working with children who live at the apartments to maintain the garden and learn about healthy food by growing it themselves. We had a reporter from the Poway Chieftain come by. Perhaps we’ll make the news! Many thanks to new VGSD’er Vern for his help on this project. Vern’s wife, Lisa, “volun-told” (a new word for me!) Vern to help. I think he’s glad he did...and we are too!
That’s it for this month. Look forward to seeing you at VGSD garden projects and garden education opportunities in the very near future!
Join us on Yahoo
Become a member of our Yahoo Group and get updates, photos and other VGSD information. It’s a good place to stay most current with VGSD happenings, garden uilds, garden education and more. Hope to see you there!
Volunteer Opportunities
We are in the process of clearing up a backlog of Garden Build applications generated by a computer glitch. We will have many garden building opportunities coming up in the coming weeks. Look for other volunteer opportunities in a couple weeks.
Urban Chickens in the News!
VGSD Education Coordinator Shelly Stewart is featured in a recent video produced by San Diego County Television about her urban chickens. To view the video, click here.
Upcoming Events & Workshops
VGSD and VGSD Partner Volunteer Opportunities
Composting Workshops
Create rich garden soil, save water, and reduce trash at the landfill by recycling your kitchen scraps and garden materials at these FREE Composting Workshops. Workshops are open to the public and taught by trained Master Composters from the Solana Center for Environmental Innovation.
Saturday, July 17, 10am to noon
San Diego Botanic Gardens 230 Quail Gardens Dr., Encinitas, 92024
Saturday, August 28, 10am to noon
San Diego Botanic Gardens 230 Quail Gardens Dr., Encinitas, 92024
Join VGSD Online!
Always seeking to expand of gardening community, the VGSD Action Committee took steps to give us a broader E- presence via Google, Facebook and Twitter. Thanks to Cynthia for managing our "Tweets", about upcoming events involving VGSD and/or our partners. Thanks also to Julianna for developing our Facebook page and Erin for creating our Google site. Below are the links to each site. I encourage you to sign up and stay connected with VGSD and our partners. We want to build an interactive San Diego garden community and these sites will allow for questions and discussions regarding garden and food issues. Here are the links to each site:
Tell a friend about VGSD.
Donate!
Participate!
Educate!
Thanks for your
enthusiasm and support!